


The Fruits of Summer

by zempasuchil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-18
Updated: 2006-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 13:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zempasuchil/pseuds/zempasuchil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Take away the right to say 'fuck' and you take away the right to say 'fuck the government.'" -- Lenny Bruce. Remus and Sirius are squatters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fruits of Summer

"It's abandoned."

"Not anymore. We've found it."

Remus doesn't ask if this is illegal; he's certain it is. He also knows that Sirius would laugh if he balked.

"We'll make it cozy soon enough. It'll be our own home-sweet-home. The only one I'll ever want," he adds, and Remus can hear his particular bitter tone. Sirius smirks, sweeping his arms about, gesturing to the cobwebby corners, the close walls, the cracked and grimy window panes. Every movement mocks this place and its shabbiness, as well as himself, and Remus, but is even more scorning of the decadent House of Black. Every empty sweep indicates their own poverty and lawlessness, their own quiet desperation now stark in the backdrop of London town.

"The only one I'll ever want," Sirius says again, slipping his arm around Remus' waist, nuzzling his cheek.

Remus leans in with half-lidded eyes, breathes, breathes.

-

Sirius protects himself with a good offense, lashing out at the city, unhappy and unkind. Builds up a barrier of misbehavior. Looks around the corner, drags on his cigarette, grinds his toe against a crack in the cement. Exhales: cloud goes out, rises in the rain. He likes getting wet. As if contact with precipitation could make him at once more real and more invisible than these busy strangers rushing by, umbrellas and dull coats.

Walking through the streets, no coats in the steady, heavy drizzle. Strangers, so many strangers, looking down or out across the distance, at their watches, at the passing cabs and cars. This summer rain is dark and impatient; this summer rain doesn't want to let up. Remus remembers the first drops and how they smelled like dust, and then the next few, and the next, and it smelled like wet city again, like spring. But the clouds overhead are dark and the air is still and close. It's only June. Only June. Summer is here.

Thunder rumbles. In their squat, Remus hears it. Padfoot is curled by his feet, ears pricked up at the low roll. Sometimes he paces the worn floorboards, nails long and scratching, swishing tail. Remus thinks he looks sad and impatient, the look of a dog waiting pitifully for something that may never come.

"Sirius."

Padfoot turns back, looks, returns, rubs against Remus and now Sirius is on the cot beside him, coolly leaning against the wall. Pausing for a second, Remus reaches out, brushes his fingers across Sirius' cheekbone, down his cheek, tenderly, almost cautious. Sirius looks at him with those same dark canine eyes, and Remus is surprised at how vulnerable he looks, even with his angled and defensive posturing. His hand slides down, down his cool neck, to the hollow at Sirius' throat, blunt fingers whispering at Sirius' open collar and at his waist, _It's all right, it's all right._

Sirius kisses him, soft and then hard, and then soft, pressing, and Remus remembers how much he loves this stormy creature, wild and sad, cold and warm, warm.

-

Sirius thoroughly enjoys living above the law. He positively preens. Saunters by a corner stand, slips a bunch of cherries into his pocket. Some of the dark red ones. They match Sirius' hair in their dim candlelight of the squat, as Remus remembers the round fruits later, that night.

That night, and it's only them and the ambient heat, the smothering darkness. In these stifling weeks they've gone past comfortable in each other's presence and turned all the way around, into not speaking out of habit. No conversation will keep them up in the night, no amount of rubbing against each other, panting in the heat, the heat. It's too hot. Remus pretends to drop off, closing his eyes to the gleam of Sirius. Cherry-dark, eyes and hair, eyes and swinging hair.

Sirius let him eat them. They were squashy and overripe. Not even sweet, just juice, tasted like plants.

Remus wishes for some yellow and red cherries. Big fat ones. Tart or sweet, translucent yellow flesh. But it's already mid-August, and those are long gone. The nights will be cooler soon enough.

Sirius sits up smoking while Remus tries to fall asleep. The ashy smell comforts him at first, but after a while it just fades into the grime of the London atmosphere. Nothing special, this cigarette. Just like all the other butts littering the streets and tube stations, rubbing ash against the bottoms of his shoes. Remus realizes he hates the city, has hated it, for a long time.

But then he sleeps, and in the morning the sun is whiter, the air is fresher, Sirius is smiling, _It's all right._

-

One night Sirius hovers behind Remus sitting at the low table, radiating heat, and slips into his pocket a brass watch on a brass chain. Remus feels it and turns around, takes it out.

"Where did you get this?"

"Does it matter?" His flippant manner almost angers Remus.

"Where?"

"A man was selling them, in a booth, on the corner."

"You stole it."

"Does it matter?"

Remus glares. "It certainly does. You can steal cherries or bread all you want, so long as you're not getting caught, but not watches, and not for me."

"I want you to have it. I want to be able to give you something, now shut up; take it."

"Sirius, no, I can't."

"Yes, you can. We don't have to take shit, Remus; look what they've done to us - look at London, the Ministry and its anti-werewolf legislation, the whole fucking system. This world is ours, ours, for all the blood and sweat it's wrung from our bodies, ours, goddamn it."

"Sirius, it's just a watch, I don't need it, I don't want it. I don't want stolen goods. You didn't give anything for that; it's valueless to me."

"You _want_ me to _pay-"_

"I want _you_. I don't want things. I want you." _It's all right._ Oh, he wants it to be, but this isn't, it just isn't.

Remus knows he hates this city and what it's done, what it has allowed Sirius to do. But he still loves, oh, he still loves Sirius. There's nothing else he loves in this life, nothing more than Sirius.

Sirius kisses him just right, and that is enough for Remus, because it has to be. Just right.

-

Dark, overripe foreboding red: the envelope Remus receives from a glaring owl. Official Ministry Business. Confidential.

Werewolf registration. Sirius makes a noise over his shoulder, something between a growl and a snort. Some noise with sneering fangs. Remus feels a little sick and a little angry, but deep down, he is already resigned.

"Dodge it," Sirius says.

Remus would like to, but he knows you can't dodge everything. They've been dodging too much for him and he needs to slow down before it catches up. Sirius doesn't care, flying at breakneck speed, scornful of anything less than reckless. "We can't go on like this forever," says Remus, looking down at the letter.

"Can't we?" says Sirius, angry at the suggestion of surrender. "Can't we?"

Sharply, Remus looks up. _You don't ever have to see your family again,_ he wants to say. He knows it's not the laws, he knows it's not the werewolf registration; it's about Sirius, always about Sirius, until Sirius realizes it and comes to grips with reality. "I can't, you know I can't, and I don't care," he says instead, and hopes Sirius will come to see what Remus already knows.


End file.
